


but of course, you know that already

by ennuijpg



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, canon-typical self loathing, season 5 sometime post-mag164
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ennuijpg/pseuds/ennuijpg
Summary: "Oh! Such devotion. You really don’t deserve it. But of course—you know that already!" -Helen, MAG164 The Sick Village(alternatively, Jon and Martin explore an abandoned lab, and Jon gets bullied in the process)
Relationships: Helen Richardson & Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	but of course, you know that already

**Author's Note:**

> MAG164 giving me enough inspiration to dip my toe into TMA fic waters? It’s apparently more likely than I thought. This was mostly spurred by my refusal to stop thinking about [this post](https://ennuijpg.tumblr.com/post/616255943985037312/leitnerarchive-ennuijpg) since last week.

Martin pulled his jacket tighter around him as he shivered; the wind seemed to grow sharper and colder the nearer to London, or what used to be London, they got. “What do you think that is?” he asked, indicating, with a tilt of his head, a sprawling complex of utilitarian buildings in the distance.

“The Bartlett Centre for Cognitive and Brain Sciences Research,” Jon answered without hesitation.

“Oh uh,” Martin faltered for a second, “Did you just know that or did you Know that?”

“Hm, Knew, I think; no reason for me to have known that otherwise.”

“Oh okay.” He paused, thought for a moment, “And how’re you feeling toda—oh well not ‘today,’ there is no ‘today,’ but you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Jon dragged a hand slowly down his face as he stopped walking.

“Do you want to take a break?” Martin asked, concern bleeding through his words.

“Do you? Are you tired?”

“No.”

“Then let’s keep going,” Jon started heading in the direction of the research buildings.

“Towards _that_?” Martin gestured at the complex. “What about the Panopticon?”

“We have to go there first, there’s something there, I can _feel_ it.”

“Mmh, okay, if you say so.” He was skeptical but wasn’t about to argue the point given Jon’s semi-omniscience.

They trudged along in comfortable silence, falling in step save for when Martin nearly squashed a large spider in his path and jumped back to avoid doing so. The wind continued to grow, biting at their faces and stinging their eyes. Combined with the dull grey the sky had turned, the whole scene began to remind Martin just a little too much of the Lonely. Jon sensed him tensing next to him and grabbed Martin’s hand, lacing their fingers together and running his thumb over Martin’s. Martin relaxed a little and directed a soft smile in Jon’s direction, a silent thank you.

The complex in the distance grew larger and larger as they approached it, until they were right in front of it. The journey seemed far shorter than it should have been, and the fact of it evidently set Jon on edge. Martin felt his nails digging into the back of his hand, saw his eyes flitting about. The main building was rectangular, about twenty storeys tall, cast in a grey concrete weathered and darkened by age. It was flanked by several shorter, wider buildings that were connected in a circle with a courtyard in the center. The whole complex was in the Brutalist style Martin had always hated so much. Its jutting angles against the grey of the sky were just all a bit too on the nose for the apocalypse.

They walked toward the main building as Martin began to protest, “I don’t know Jon,” he said, slowing his step but not stopping, “Do we have to go in? We don’t even know this is the right way, couldn’t we just go around—” his words were cut short as they stepped over the threshold of the complex and every building outside of the complex itself seemed to suddenly disappear.

“It seems we have no choice,” Jon answered dryly, “And I still think there’s _something_ here.”

Martin hummed in neither agreement nor disagreement but followed Jon into the building regardless. They were met with a lobby that looked most unwelcoming to visitors; no reception desk was to be found anywhere, and the only wayfinder available was a sign next to the lifts that had a list of names and a room number next to each, with no indication of what the rooms were or who the names belonged to. At the center of the room was a staircase going down, surrounded on three sides by a waist-high frosted glass wall. Neither the lifts nor the staircase looked to be favorable options, but Jon mused aloud that the basement could just be storage rooms, and he’d rather not waste his time with them if not necessary. So, he grasped Martin’s hand and pulled gently, indicating they should head for the lifts. 

It dinged before Jon’s finger even touched the up button, let alone pushed it, and the sound echoed hollowly through the empty lobby.

“Well that’s not ominous at all,” Martin chuckled mirthlessly.

They stepped inside and Jon pressed the button for the second floor, this time the lift letting him do so without intervening. It creaked and groaned, evidence of age betraying its shiny metal facade. From what they could see as they stepped out, the second floor consisted of two long hallways branching off from the lifts. The one to the left was blocked off by a glass door, and a keypad by its handle blinked red. They moved cautiously down the hallway on the right, Martin reading each plaque by the doors lining the hallway’s left wall. _Anne Carrion, Ph.D.; Cerise Moore, Ph.D.; Maxwell de Santos, Ph.D.; Kenneth MacLeod, M.S.; Evelyn Ortega, M.S.; Janani Singh, Radiation Safety Specialist._

“Molecular neuroscientists. Researchers, I believe.” Jon supplied helpfully, anticipating Martin’s question, “These are their offices.”

The doors to each office were locked, but a look through the small window in each door told them when they already knew: the floor, and likely the building as well, was completely and utterly deserted. Martin led the way back to the lifts and other hallway. He tried pushing (and then pulling) the glass door, but the red light on the keypad remained red, and the door remained locked. Jon made a move for the keypad as Martin stepped aside, and he punched in the numbers _2 8 7 3_. The keypad glowed green, and Martin nearly fell through the door he was leaning on as it swung open. This hallway was wider, with doors flanking both sides and posters of academic journal articles pinned on the walls. Every door had a window through which they saw black-topped laboratory benches and sinks filled with glassware, as if there had been experiments actively in progress when all the researchers just disappeared from the labs. And every door was locked, this time with ID badge readers that Jon couldn’t exactly Know how to unlock. At the end of the hall was a pale yellow metal door that seemed to lead to a walk-in freezer, a dial by the door reading “-78ºC.” 

“There’s nothing else on this floor, is there?” Martin started heading back, “Maybe we should try the other floors?”

“Right, yes I think so.”

There was no reason to not check the floors sequentially, so they found themselves on the third floor, nearly identical to the second. The only differences were the names on the office plaques—behavioral neuroscientists, Jon had said—the addition of small animal cages devoid of any animals in the laboratories, and instead of a walk-in freezer, the room at the end of a the hall was labeled “Imaging,” and under it, a warning sign, “32P, 35S, 22Na, 36Cl RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES IN USE.”

They continued up the floors, all of them some variation of the first they’d seen, half offices, half laboratories. It wasn’t until the fifteenth floor they found something different.  
The lifts opened up to a large room with two circular tables in the center, each for about eight people. The back wall was lined with floor to ceiling windows that looked out of the grey suburbs of the greater London area. It looked just as empty as it did when all the buildings disappeared as they stepped over the threshold to the complex, but Jon Knew it wasn’t _actually_ empty, something was just making it _look_ as if it were. Trying to Know what caused the illusion did nothing but make his vision go blurry for a few seconds.

The left and right walls of the room each had a set of double doors. As Martin approached the one on the left, Jon could hear him mutter the name on the plaque, “The Hallett Dale Conference Room.” This was the first unlocked room they had happened upon.

The other room was “The Milner Conference Room.” Jon found this one unlocked as well and pulled the doors open to reveal a sparsely decorated room with a long rectangular table in the center of it, chairs on the long sides, each side seating twelve.

Finding nothing notable, he exited the room and focused his attention on the scene outside, or rather, lack thereof. The unnatural emptiness gnawed on the inside of his mind, as if there was something just _beyond_ his vision there he couldn’t quite see, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. Martin left the Hallett Dale room and found him at the back windows, thousand-yard stare fixed loosely on the empty landscape below them. His top teeth worried at his bottom lip, and when Martin placed a hand on his shoulder, he didn’t react.

“Alright?” Martin asked gently, hoping to pull him out from his rumination.

Jon reached back to cover Martin’s hand on his shoulder with his own and let out a long exhale, “Let’s go look at the other floors,” he replied, still half lost in thought. 

At the sixteenth floor, they were met with the familiar sight of two hallways branching off to the left and right. The hall on the right yielded nothing surprising, just a row of offices, this time for a number of neuropharmacologists. The hall to the left was blocked off by a familiar glass door to which Jon entered the code as he had done for all thirteen other laboratory floors. The door swung in to reveal the wide hallway with labs on both sides. A walk-in freezer door was at the end, and Jon could have sworn it was just a slightly brighter yellow than all the others. 

They went through the usual routine of peeking inside the labs through the windows, checking their doors and finding them locked, each taking a side of the hallway. Martin reached the end first, turning his attention to the freezer door, its dial reading “-42ºC.” He tried the handle, which unlatched, “Uhm, Jon?” he made a move to pull the door open, “I think this one’s unlocked, actually.”

Jon’s head snapped up from the poster he was reading a few doors down and registered, half a second too late, that it was very much _not_ a good thing the door was unlocked. “Martin!” he warned, closing the meters between him and the yellow in a couple frantic leaps. But Martin had already stepped inside, leaving the door slightly ajar. By the time Jon reached it, the familiar form of Helen, swathed in floating fractals and dizzying colors, stepped out, solidly blocking his path.

“Uh uh uh,” she pressed a finger to his chest, “you may want to stop there, dear Archivist,” her voice dripped sickly sweet condescension. Something sharp, fractal or finger, grazed his side, dangerously close to a part of his unprotected liver, where a rib used to be. Not that being lightly stabbed by the Distortion would cause any lasting injury to him, but it made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable all the same. “You stepping inside may be an easy way to cause me some trouble, but poor _Martin_ would also be trapped in those corridors should they collapse in on themselves! Unless you can Know that you could get him out unharmed? But I don’t think that’s the case, is it?”

Jon searched for the knowledge for a second before realizing that it wasn’t and wouldn’t be coming to him. He sighed, “No, I suppose that isn’t the case.”

“Right then!” She continued with a cheeriness that was just so _wrong_ , “That’s settled. It’s best you stay out here.”

He glanced past her shoulder into the corridor, seeing nothing comprehensible. The only things visible were patterns of colorful light dancing against inky black, as if he had closed his eyes and pressed his palms against them. Catching him looking, Helen smiled coldly and shut the door with her foot in one smooth motion. Jon strengthened the resolve in his voice, “What do you want?”

“Oh you already know! Thought I’d pop by for a chat, I just want us to be friends again of course!”

“You and I both know that’s not _true_ ,” Jon countered, punctuating the last word.

“Oh Jon, you and your silly little words you think still mean things! I think you of all people should know by now that _fact_ and _truth_ aren’t quite the same, hm? You may have all the facts of things, but how much of the _truth_ do you _really_ understand?”

“What are you going to do to Martin?” he demanded, voice low, solidly ignoring her question.

“Oh now aren’t you adorable, fussing over him like this. Don’t worry! Nothing will hurt him in there,” she laughed unnervingly, “Well, not physically! I just wanted some time for us to talk, hm what’s that word you use? Ah! Yes, _avatar_ to avatar.”

“And will you let him go once I,” he spit the words out as if they were venom on his tongue, “ _talk_ to you?”

She considered it for a moment, dragging the decision out a tad longer than necessary just to watch Jon squirm, “Mmmh hmm, I suppose I will!”

The next moment passed in near silence, with only the hum of the not-freezer behind them. 

“Well?” Jon asked, impatient.

“ _Well_ ,” she began slyly, “How have you two crazy kids been finding the trip since I last saw you? You’ve crossed quite a few now, haven’t you? Less than half to go!”

“What is it to you?” He was decidedly against answering in any satisfactory way.

“Just checking up! I know you’re not exactly an expert on friends, what with all of yours becoming not so fond of you by some point or another, but even you must know this is what friends do?” Her eyes glittered with mad glee. 

“I’m only still here so you’ll let Martin out. We,” he gestured pointedly in the space between them, “are _never_ going to be friends. As if I could trust you after you sat idly by.” 

“Oh pity! I do think we could be the best of friends if you’d stop being so stubborn! But that’s your problem, isn’t it Archivist? You never really let yourself trust anyone, do you? And eventually, everyone gets tired of it and leaves. Or, they die before they can get tired. Oh! Or, they get tired _and_ die. My, my, my, it doesn’t seem easy for those who get close to the Archivist.” She continued with little sign of stopping any time soon, “You like to think you’ve made an active decision to trust people, but how much have you actually stuck to that? You’re always on the defensive, holding people at arm’s length because you’re scared they’ll leave you. Maybe you say it’s for their safety, but clearly, they still aren’t very safe! So, how much is so _you_ don’t feel as hurt when they leave?”

“Is this what you came here to do? Lay out my interpersonal troubles?” 

She continued, paying no mind, “And don’t even get me _started_ on Martin. Now, _he_ has loyalty to rival an entire army of knights. I don’t have to be all-knowing to know that boy won’t leave you. But how much of that loyalty is just out of a feeling of obligation to take care of people? Even if they hurt him? You know him, and if not, you at least Know him. He stayed by his mother all those years despite her causing him nothing but pain and trouble. And now,” she reveled in the determination dissolving behind Jon’s eyes, “Now he’s got you! Another person to devote himself to, regardless of if they deserve him or not!”

She was relentless, continuing as if she had an entire list and a time limit to mention everything, “Have you ever wondered how he really feels about this? Love of his life being the thing that started the apocalypse? That threw the world he loved into so much pain and misery and fear? Sure, he _loves_ you, but is that the same as feeling _safe_ with you? Even better, you’ve taken a statement from him before, haven’t you? Perhaps you’re the reason he can’t get a decent night’s sleep, what with you haunting his nightmares and all. He can barely get comfortable with you Knowing things, much less listen to you record a statement. Maybe, he’s even a bit _repulsed_ , but he wouldn’t tell you that, would he? You can ask and ask, but you know as well as I do, he’s a damned good liar. And lie to spare your feelings? That’s the most Martin thing he could do!”

“I know what you’re doing,” he retorted through gritted teeth, “I know what you are. _Es mentiras_. I don’t have to believe a word you’re saying.”

“Then tell me, Archivist, have you ever really asked him about this? How he feels about it all? About you? Have you Compelled him for the truth of his thoughts?”

“No, but I can’t, it’d be wrong—”

She cut him off, “Can’t or won’t? You say you can’t because doing so would be wrong and you don’t want to violate his free will like that, but isn’t part of it not that but rather that you’re scared of his answer?” She barreled over him before he had a chance to answer, “And he’s not naive, but he sure does have a lot of hope! Hope that all this will be reversed, hope that things will be normal again, hope that _you_ will be normal again. But we both know that’s not happening. He’s always going to be shackled to you and your spooky omniscience! Even if you do somehow turn the world back, you’re surely not coming out of this the same person he fell in love with. I mean,” she laughed a little, the sound carrying down the hallway and settling into Jon’s bones, “even if you did, you have to admit that you’ve _never_ been good at keeping people around. Always just a little too cold, walls built a little too high, and not much to offer but a disparaging and abrasive personality, hm?

“And _dear_ _Archivist_ , after everything he’s been through and all that he’s poured into caring for other people, what with the _constant_ self sacrifice, don’t you think he deserves someone to take care of him? _Actually_ make him feel safe?”

“Yes.”

“And you think you can do that? Be what he needs? Be _enough_?”

“I-I—,” Jon faltered for a moment before sighing, “I don’t know.”

“Well then, you see what I mean! Now, this has been just a _lovely_ chat, but you know how it is. Business is booming, so I’ve got to dash!” 

Jon had too little time to process what was happening before the door opened and she stepped backwards into it, laughing while she did and giving Jon a little wave before it closed with a clear click. “Wait! But Martin!” He tried the door to find that it was securely locked. 

Jon had always considered himself someone to maintain some level of decorum and dignity, even if his professionalism was usually just a shield for himself or a diversion so others wouldn’t focus on anything else, but if there was ever a time to pound his fists against a door and wail and beg and plead, this was it. 

And he was about to when the door swung wildly open, nearly hitting him directly in the face, and out stumbled Martin, wild-eyed and disheveled. “Jon!” he cried, collapsing into Jon’s arms as he staggered slightly backwards from the shock of Martin’s weight on his shoulders, and they both sunk to the floor. 

“Martin,” Jon breathed a sigh of relief, “Martin, you’re—you—what happened?”

“H-how long was I in there?”

“I don’t know, about twenty minutes?”

“Oh God, Jon, it felt like forever. I had no idea how long I was there, I think I lost track somewhere between it feeling like hours and feeling like days,” he began to ramble now, breaths getting shuddery and shallow, “And you weren’t there, a-and—” the tears flowed freely now, and he sunk further into Jon’s arms, face pressed against his chest, “And I thought I would never get out of there and you would never come back and I kept hearing a voice in the corridors saying that nothing would ever be the same again and I didn’t know what she meant—I mean I thought that sh-she had _killed_ you or something and I was just so scared and I—”

“Shh, I’m here, I’m here now,” Jon soothed, running his fingers through Martin’s tangled curls, “I’m here now.” He pressed a kiss to the back of Martin’s hand, skin still wet and salty with tears.

It killed him to see Martin like this, in pain, because of Jon. But as Martin’s sobs gradually died down and his clutch on the front of Jon’s shirt loosened, Jon knew that right then, in that moment, he needed Martin and Martin needed him. Still though, what about after all this, if there even was an after? Helen’s words ran through Jon’s head as they sat on the floor of the laboratory building and held on to each other for dear life. _And you think you can do that? Be enough?_

They decided to stay in the building to rest for a few hours, even if they didn’t physically need it. Jon couldn’t wake Martin from the nightmare he had.

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all feedback is much appreciated and cherished. And many thanks to my lovely beta readers [Lizzie](https://babyyodablackwood.tumblr.com/) and Jessica! You can also find me on tumblr [@ennuijpg](https://ennuijpg.tumblr.com/)!


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